Two families gather at a remote cabin for a relaxing Christmas get away. Little do they know that their merry making is soon to be horribly disrupted when their children turn violently against them.
Now what would have been a vacation is becoming a tale of horror, pitting parents against their children in a battle for survival. Only the teenage Casey appears to be both immune from the virus which is turning the children homicidal, and also intelligent enough to figure out what is going on, and act.
So... some film makers were sitting around in a room one day thinking up new horror movies and clearly someone figured that Children of the Corn was popular... why not remove the corn, set the film during Christmas... voila!
Well, sort of. The Children keeps the viewer in suspense for a while towards the start of the film. It's plain to see what is about to happen, but you are left wondering how it will start, and when.
Once it does get started, the film is heavy on gory death scenes, and plays heavily on the horror of parents and children fighting each other to the death. But something about the film just doesn't quite click.
It might be that the characters are all so frustratingly blind to see what is clearly taking place that it becomes hard to sympathise with them. Or it might be that a movie based on a single shocking concept quickly loses its shock value.
Either way, the only character that really establishes a significant connection with the viewer is Casey (Hannah Tointon), the teenage daughter who is the only one with the brains to sort out what is happening and act on it. Much of the film focuses on her and as a result a connection is made that doesn't really exist with the rest of the characters. What does evade reason is why exactly, other than to exploit her physical beauty for the purpose of selling films, she spends the whole film in an extremely short skirt despite being outside in the snow in the middle of winter. Doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense coming from the only character who on every point, except her attire, seems to be the only one with any common sense.
The Children is ultimately a decent, but largely forgettable film which aims to find new shocks in old material.
2.5 doll stomach implants out of 5
Rated R for disturbing bloody violent content, terror, language and brief drug use.
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